Resident Evil Village "Village" and "Castle" PS5 Demo Impressions

After the latest Resident Evil Showcase, we found out PlayStation users would have access to a weekly rollout of new demos prior to the launch of Resident Evil Village, the next entry in the long-running horror franchise that will be available on most platforms. This approach to a demo is not the clearest way of going about it, but the Village Demo was available Saturday, April 17th between 5 pm PDT/8 pm EST and April 18th, 1 am PDT / 4 am EST, and included 30 minutes of playtime while the Castle Demo would be available April 24th between those same timeframes. I played both of those demos on PS5 and wanted to share those findings. 

For starters, this specific time frame was not a good way of rolling this out. I think having a demo just being widely available with a playtime of 30 minutes would have been a lot better, more akin to the way the demo was rolled out for the remake of Resident Evil 2. While something like the Beginning Hour Demo would have been nice, I think getting a vertical slice of what the game is was a better idea with the RE Village Maiden Demo, serving as a showcase for those curious about the visual style. Gripes aside, let’s dive into these two demos in preparation for the launch on May 7th. 

*Slight spoilers for RE Village are ahead. If you want to go in not knowing anything, turn around now!

VILLAGE DEMO

To start off, this is clearly the more action-oriented of the demos and it doesn't shy away from that, almost immediately giving you use of not only the pistol but the shotgun as well. We also get a clear look at the inventory and crafting menu this time around and for the most part, the inventory is just quality-of-life updates when compared to RE7. The inventory looks a lot like a mix of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 4 with key items and treasures having their own inventory screen. The real changes revolve around how the crafting is laid out and it is a welcome change. You can see the recipes and what is required with no need to remember what combines with what to make something. It's a nice improvement and I enjoyed having the list right there and being able to click the recipe instead of having to combine the items myself. 

For the enemies, we really only get to see the Lycans in the demo and it is such a breath of fresh air to have them vs the Molded. They scurry on rooftops, hide in fields, and are incredibly aggressive. In my opinion, they are also a lot scarier than the Molded, having an actual thinking being attacking you rather than some blob. I do, and will always, miss the zombies but I think the full game will make its case for werewolves and skeleton-looking monsters. 

The gameplay presented in this demo feels just as good and responsive as Resident Evil 7. There isn't really a huge change here unless you count the controller itself implementing adaptive triggers which feel good and give varying levels of resistance on the triggers depending on which gun you're firing. The load times on the PS5 are practically instantaneous. I didn't even have time to take a sip of water before the game was loaded and ready to go; I'm hoping this performance keeps up throughout the whole game.

The story segment you are actually playing through sees Ethan attempting to save some villagers and earn the trust of others though, in Resident Evil fashion, this takes a turn for the worst and we see what a Lycan bite does to someone. I was worried at first because it seemed like a pretty big story moment to have in a demo before remembering we haven't been to the castle yet. These are the opening moments where we learn Ethan's reason for being in this area and that's about it. I think the ending of the demo where some "emotional" stuff happens landed a little flat, mostly because I don't know these people, so it's not hugely impactful to me. 

CASTLE DEMO

*Please note that I played this demo on a different TV and had to turn the brightness all the way up to see, so any screenshots that look bad or blown out should be blamed on the TV, not the game which looks AMAZING. 

Of course, all those quality-of-life changes are obviously present here as well but we get to see the new version of the merchant in this game. His name is Duke and he seems to have a similar mysterious background like that of the Resident Evil 4 merchant, even throwing in some dialogue that suggests they know each other and well. "What are ya buyin'.....just something an old friend used to say.” I wonder if they will give us any information on this apparent group of teleporting merchants? 

We do see new enemy variants in this demo, getting to fight the more skeletal enemies and to my surprise, we still just get the same glimpse of Lady Dimitrescu that we do in the Maiden showcase and our pursuer again is the bug lady from the Maiden showcase. She is one of Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters and chases the player, appearing out of a cloud of locusts. We actually don't get any really big story moments here and no more combat than the Village demo. We are able to buy, sell, and upgrade our weapons and buy attachments as well. I was able to afford a hair-trigger for the shotgun and an extended clip for the pistol. This really feels like Capcom's attempt to recapture the magic from Resident Evil 4 and it might work, it all feels really, really good.

Overall, it was a decent demo with enough action to give players a good idea of how combat will work and to maybe quell some people who were unsure how it would feel going back to a more action-oriented Resident Evil. I played on the PS5 with HDR turned on with Ray Tracing and 4k; the framerate was good with no drops that I noticed and damn does this game look gorgeous on next-gen hardware. I'm sure it will look good on PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X but it's the beginning gen hardware I'm a little worried about. I don't think it will be anywhere near the whole Cyberpunk 2077 thing but playing this demo I think it's clear that Resident Evil Village is meant for the newer generation of hardware.

I'll be interested to see how much of the horror element will be present because as we have seen before when Capcom leans into the action in Resident Evil, the scariness takes a step back and sometimes even goes by the wayside. That being said, we still don't know what the overall story will be and if Chris will turn into a werewolf. What was with the fadeout of “Vill” leaving only “AGE” on screen during the latest trailer? 

We will all get to be chased by the giant vampire lady and find out what Capcom has in store for us on May 7th. I cannot wait.

More information about Resident Evil Village can be found on the official website. Screenshots were taken using the native features of the PS5. 

More Resident Evil coverage can be found on our review of Resident Evil 2 or our thoughts on Resident Evil 3, both of which are remakes. You can also read more of my thoughts in my review of Hitman 3 or my review of Demon’s Souls.